The Art Of Not Caring

f o u r

"You have to tell Luke"

"I really can't.

I'm not trying to lead him on

but I need to figure this thing out first.

Please understand me."

"Okay, figure it out.

But tell him this weekend."

"This weekend?! You can't make me do that!"

"I'm not forcing you but he has a right to know. If you don't tell him this weekend, I will."

"Kat!

Please don't!

You can't actually be serious?!

Kat?"

The line of texts we'd exchanged Friday evening haunted me all Saturday. I didn't know what to do and could think of nothing else. For the most part I just hid away in my room either trying to figure out what to do or trying to figure out how to distract myself.

The think is, I kind of already knew what I'd end up doing. I just didn't like it. Kat hadn't left me a lot of options so I knew I had to talk to Luke. I just didn't know how. His reaction wouldn't be good, I was certain of that, which left me wondering how bad exactly it would be. Which was something I did not want to think about. At all.

"Ah, fuck it." I muttered, clapping shut the book I'd been trying to read - emphasis on trying. Before I could change my mind I snatched up my phone and typed a message to Luke.

"Hey! Could we maybe meet up + talk tomorrow? It's kinda urgent..."

Before I could see if he answered I shut off my phone again and threw it on the bed, away from me.

Over the next two hours I tried my best to continue reading but my thoughts kept drifting towards my phone not unlike a moth flying towards the light -artificial lamps mind you, nothing that could actually beneficial for the moth. After realising I'd only read three pages in half an hour and had absolutely no idea what those three pages contained I gave up and approached my phone, ignoring the prevalent thought that a lot of insects died because they burned themselves once coming in contact with the light-source. I must've looked crazy, sneaking towards my phone like it was a wild animal about to devour me. I felt crazy too, telling myself I wasn't an insect and my phone wasn't a deathly heat-beaming monster.

Luke's answer was ridiculously simple, not at all something that could justify the weird sense of fear I had felt just moments before.

"Sure, sounds serious.

Everything okay?"

That was it. Of course his answer would be harmless, I told myself, he had no idea what all this was about. Still, my fingers trembled when I wrote out my reply. And deleted it. And wrote it again. Deleted it. Rewrote it. And then, just to finally get it over with, hit send.

"I'm fine.

Could we meet at your house? Around 3 maybe?"

The answer came back in seconds.

"Ok"

I stared at my screen, motionless, fingers still shaking, heartbeat only slowly returning back to normal. This was it. There was no turning back now. I now couldn't stress out about how I when and how I wanted to meet him which made room for a far bigger, far more terrifying question.